NASHVILLE LIVES! Barenaked Ladies & Ingrid Michaelson rock Ryman…

THIS IS PART ONE OF OUR MULTI-PART (NON-HOCKEY) SERIES PROVING THAT EVEN A 1,000 YEAR FLOOD CANNOT KEEP OUR CITY DOWN. NASHVILLE IS STILL IN BUSINESS AND WAITING FOR YOU TO COME VISIT!

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First, an angel sang. Then, a multi-platinum band rocked the stage.

It was official: Nashville, Tennessee was still open for business.

Singer/songwriter Ingrid Michaelson and Canadian rock group Barenaked Ladies not only put on an amazing show at the Ryman Auditorium on Monday night, but also just happened to put on the first as-scheduled concert in Music City since the 1,000 year flood hit Middle Tennessee eight days earlier.

There have been a handful of quickly-launched benefit shows, the Goo Goo Dolls pushed their gig at the Ryman back a day and the Grand Ole Opry concerts have been moved to different venues but this was the first show that was scheduled before May 1 to take place as-scheduled since the flooding.

Michaelson, one of the most gifted songwriters of the decade, kicked off the night and set the bar pretty high for the evening. She wow’d those unfamiliar with her music with hits such as Maybe, Everybody and The Way I Am and then single-handedly took everyone to church in the acoustically-perfect Ryman Auditorium by performing The Chain. Her usual partners in crime Allie Moss and Bess Rogers accompanied her on stage until the final song which was nothing short of a vocal clinic. In front of the audience, she sang the harmonies, then the background parts and then looped each of them. She then went into Night Swimming by R.E.M. over those very same loops. The house sat dead silent in amazement during the song but, on the final note, Michaelson was met with a roaring standing ovation by everyone in attendance, most of who sparsely knew her name just 35 minutes prior.

The headliner, Barenaked Ladies, now had to follow that performance and it wasn’t going to be an easy task.

But follow they did and they matched Michaelson’s presence and entertainment value. They opened their set with hits like Testing 1-2-3, The Old Apartment and even an improv’d song about Nashville and the historic Ryman Auditorium. The crowd had bought in and was hooked. Ed Robertson, et al were on top of their game and appeared to be having as much fun as the crowd was. They told stories, played old and new tunes and even harkened back to their Horseshoe Tavern days by inviting a musician they spotted in the crowd up on stage.

David Mayfield, guitarist for the bluegrass band Cadillac Sky, found himself pulled out of the crowd and handed an acoustic guitar right in the middle of BNL’s set. Robertson asked Mayfield if he knew Desolation Boulevard’s Fox On the Run. When Mayfield nodded, the highlight of the night materialized. The two guitarists played their instruments like they were fifth appendages and the crowd went ballistic. Robertson even worked a little It Takes Two by Rob Base into the jam. A standing ovation replied to the impromptu performance and a few thousand Cadillac Sky fans were born.

The guys then finished out their set with a string of their biggest hits: One Week, It’s All Been Done, Pinch Me and If I Had a $1,000,000 (complete with an interpolation of Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler).

All in all a great night of music in the city appropriately nicknamed Music City USA. A city that’s still open for business. A city that still has so much to offer tourists and travelers. A city that even a 1,000 year flood can’t keep down.

Want us to prove it to you? With this post we are hereby announcing our Let Freedom Sing! sweepstakes! section303.com has partnered with the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau and we are proud to announce that someone outside of Tennessee can win a trip for two to Nashville for 4th of July weekend. The prize comes with airfare, hotel accomodations and VIP tickets to the Let Freedom Sing! concert at Riverfront Park. If you live in Middle Tennessee, why not get your friends and family to enter over at the Contests page? If you’re outside of Middle Tennessee… what are you waiting for?!? Go enter!

2 Comments

people care about the barenaked ladies and it’s not 1995? sorry, but what does this have to do with anything?

About Jeremy K. Gover

Jeremy grew up in the Bay Area cheering for the Sharks since their inception. He moved to Nashville in September of 2005 and became a season ticket holder a day later. Thankfully, he no longer bleeds teal. You can e-mail Jeremy at [email protected]